


Proximity

by RiMaajon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Questionable choice of breakfast foods, Strained Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 22:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiMaajon/pseuds/RiMaajon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you wake up he’s already gone, blowing your carefully measured,<br/>gentle gestures right out of the waters of friendship and common courtesy with two raised middle-fingers and a crateful of hand-grenades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proximity

 

You can’t do it, as much as you want to.  
You’re curled up tight in a huge heap, a nest of blankets and pillows, and your body is screaming at you to get up and eat.

You would, too.

The food is barely one door away from you, and yet you can’t muster up  
the balls to get out of the warm little spot you dug out for yourself in this corner  
of your own personal hell.  
You crack open a sensitive eye and stare at the bundle of troll in your arms,  
squished so tight up against your body that he looks like he’s trying to burrow deep inside of you,  
even as he’s sleeping.

There’s snores wriggling out of his vague, lumpy shape with each breath he takes,  
and you can’t bear to jostle him awake, no matter how much your body demands some sustenance.  
You honest to god can not get up, like there’s some physical barrier  
keeping you glued right into the sorry excuse for a bed the two of you made in a hurry last night, or day,  
it’s hard to tell, really, with how things are going.

Your stomach rumbles in reply to his almost hilariously demure snores and you sigh,  
the air escaping your lungs rustling up his pitch-black curls.  
Restless sleep beckons, for a lack of any other, better, more productive activity you could pursue right now,  
and your eye slides back shut for another hour of trying to doze and failing miserably.  
You don’t sleep too well.  
Never did, really.

And neither does he.

 

When you wake up he’s already gone, blowing your carefully measured,  
gentle gestures right out of the waters of friendship and common courtesy  
with two raised middle-fingers and a crateful of hand-grenades.

You find him in the kitchen once you manage to get out of bed.  
Every single bone in your body aches from within as if they’re all hollow,  
but you don’t pay the sensation any mind once your eyes, almost accidentally,  
fall upon the weird sort-of troll-boyfriend you got yourself recently.

He sits on a counter-top with his legs dangling down listlessly,  
eating raw bacon straight from the package. You can see his teeth come into view  
when his lips pull back from them with each strip he mangles,  
and they’re glinting with grease and spit and something else, something inherently him,  
only magnified by the harsh, fluorescent light that illuminate the kitchen.  
The same light that mercilessly torments your pounding head and watering eyes.  
You squint against the intrusion and wonder how he stands it.

Coffee. You need coffee.  
You shuffle over to the coffee-maker and prop an over-sized mug under  
it at an angle, fully aware of the fact that it doesn’t fit right.

It doesn’t matter, really, as long as it works.

He doesn’t pay you any attention and picks another strip of bacon up  
like it’s the sole purpose of his being, as if his life revolves around  
sucking greasy, vaguely uncooked meat into his mouth and down his throat.  
Word-flap. Food chute. Snort-hatch.  
Whatever they call it.

You have no idea how he does it, but the way he chews and  
swallows makes something in your own throat constrict with  
how impossibly lewd it is.  
Time to give all your attention to the coffee maker here.  
Yeah, good.

You press the button with a pale, ghostly finger and watch as the machine  
springs to life with a hellish screech, ready to squeeze out some delicious coffee for your drinking pleasures.  
The process takes way too fucking long and you involuntarily let your thoughts drift back to the troll on the counter-top.  
You can hear him swallow another sliver of raw bacon and your mind plays tricks on you, supplying the vivid mental image of  
his rumpled form going to town on his shitty breakfast of choice, throat working each slice with the loving precision of a 1972’s Linda Lovelace.

Your coffee is done and you let out a pent up breath you didn’t even know  
you were holding, wrenching the mug out of the machine and blowing on the steaming concoction.  
It’s time to confront the elephant in the room, if you want to or not.  
You cock your hips with pretentious ease and lean against the counter-top,  
mug in hand and mustering up the guts to look back at your sorta-but-not-really-troll-boyfriend.

” ‘sup?” you mumble, taking him in.  
All there is to him.  
From the way his hair sticks up in every single direction,  
black and wild and damp,  
to the angles and planes of his compact, small body.  
To the bruises, the bites, the scratches.  
The way his shoulders are hunched up.  
The knots his muscles are constantly tangled up in with how he folds in on himself  
like he doesn’t want a single person to ever be able to see him,  
like he wants to fold himself up until he’s invisible.

Your throat goes dry and you drink deeply, masterfully overplaying that the coffee is burning its way down your throat something awful.

“What?” he asks briskly, his bacon-fellatio endeavors forgotten for the time  
being and the package slides out of his hand,  
landing on the counter-top with a soggy ‘flop’.

You swallow, swallow, swallow, emptying half of the over-sized mug in one go,  
taking your sweet ass time before you grace him with a reply.  
“Nothin’ much. Just admiring the view, really.  
That bacon’s got me jealous, babe.”  
The words come out stilted, wrong, lacking your usual easy-going cadence.  
You’re nervous, and it shows.

He puffs himself up with a fierce, flushed frown and slides off the counter-top,  
one finger in the air and pointing in your general direction, his mouth opening wide for the extraordinarily colorful  
explosion of expletives surely to come in the next few seconds.  
All he does is deflate once his eyes meet yours, and he stomps out of the kitchen without a single word leaving his lips.

You watch the empty door-frame as if he’d come back if only you stare at it hard enough.  
A minute passes, then two, then fifteen.  
You roll your tense shoulders and notice that he left his gross,  
half-finished pack of raw bacon right there on the counter.

You almost pick up a slice, almost, but not even you are quite that pathetic yet.  
A thoughtful moment later, the bacon gets slapped into a heated-up pan instead,  
sizzling and hissing at you as it folds in on itself, shrinking up,  
and finally charring into a black, bitter mess under your lost stare.  
You eat it anyway and wash the harsh after-taste away with the dregs  
of your cold coffee.


End file.
